EPSRC Early Career Fellow

Academic Division: Mechanics, Materials and Design

Research group: Materials Engineering

Telephone: +44 1223 3 39838

Email: mda36@eng.cam.ac.uk

Personal website

Research interests

Dr Mark Ainslie is a Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellow in the Bulk Superconductivity Group in Division C working on a research project entitled 'Engineering Interactions of Magnetic and Superconducting Materials for Electrical Applications'. This five-year project encompasses materials research on high temperature superconductors in both tape and bulk forms, and electrical and mechanical design of an axial gap, trapped flux-type superconducting electric machine. His current research interests lie in the area of applied superconductivity in electrical engineering, including superconducting electric machine design, power system protection and energy storage, electromagnetic modelling, and interactions between conventional and superconducting materials. Dr Ainslie is a committee member of the Institute of Physics Superconductivity Group.

Strategic themes

Energy, transport and urban infrastructure

Electrical engineering applications of high temperature superconducting (HTS) materials: superconducting fault current limiter (SFCL) design, utilisation of HTS materials in bulk and tape form to superconducting electric machine design.

Research projects

• Superconducting fault current limiter (SFCL) design using series- and parallel-connected YBCO thin films (2006-2008), Master's thesis
• Transport AC loss in high temperature superconducting coils (2009-2012), Doctoral thesis
• Engineering interactions of magnetic and superconducting materials for electrical applications (2012-2017), Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellowship
• Flux dynamics of (RE)BCO bulk superconductors for pulsed field magnetisation (2014-2016), Royal Society International Exchange Scheme

STUDENT PROJECTS

• Properties of high temperature superconducting (HTS) tape for electric machines (2013-2015), PhD student
• Magnetisation properties of high temperature superconducting (HTS) bulk materials for electric machines (2013-2015), PhD student
• Computation of the field in an axial gap, trapped flux-type superconducting electric machine (2013-2014), Visiting PhD student (China Scholarship Council)

Teaching activity

• Lecturer, IIB 4B19 Renewable Electrical Power
• Supervisor, IA P3 and IB P5

Department role and responsibilities